I have been a Final Cut Pro user for more than 10 years (starting with version 1.2 on a 500 MHz G4). Final Cut Pro X is a disaster, but that’s a well-covered topic for a different forum. After experimenting with Premiere Pro CS5.5 for a few months, I am ready to make the switch for all of my future projects.

I make a living editing video. I don’t, however, work for a big company, and I don’t have a lot of money to spend on third-party software or hardware. Much of my work is shot on DSLRs and delivered online. That may put me in the category of “pro-sumer” to some, but I wouldn’t be making the switch if I didn’t require a more professional alternative to FCPX to do my job.

I also don’t think “pro” has to be synonymous with clunky and ugly. (I’m looking at you, Avid.) When Final Cut was young, it was fun, intuitive, and sturdy. It became a robust, professional NLE over time. I think Premiere Pro is on that path now.

I like the look, the feel, and the functionality of CS5.5. It’s not quite Apple-slick, but it’s very much at home on a Mac. Overall, it’s an upgrade to FCP7 and a very strong alternative to FCPX. I have high hopes for CS6.

But this is not a comprehensive review. It is just a list of negatives: my gripes, wishes, and personal preferences. My list of positives would be much longer, but my concern right now is with CS6 and the improvements that I hope it delivers. As I am new to Premiere, it's quite possible that I am mistaken about certain functionalities or lack thereof, but I thoroughly researched each point in the help docs and forums before posting this.

There are rumors that Apple will be switching back to nVidia, but all recent iMacs have ATI and only ATI cards.

Background rendering (or at least improved rendering options)

Background rendering is probably FCPX’s most impressive feature and Adobe needs to catch up. However, even if true background rending can’t be achieved, there should be an auto-render option (after a set idle time), partial rendering (if you cancel a render, keep everything that has been rendered up until that point), and more render options (e.g. render all and render selected). Regarding that last point, I think the whole work area concept should be dropped. It makes sense for other apps, particularly for animation, but it just gets in the way of more important timeline functions while offering little functionality beyond being a clumsy way to control the area to be rendered. At the very least, have a way to hide it.

Full-screen preview

Maximizing the program frame just isn’t the same (although the grave accent key function may be reason enough to switch to Premiere). Full-screen preview isn’t just a nifty function for demo-ing sequences. It’s a big part of the way I work.

DisplayPort/Thunderbolt out to HDMI

It may be that a third-party card is required for proper color correction on an external display, but there’s no reason this feature shouldn’t exist.

Thumbnail images/show frames bug

This one drives me crazy. I’ve tested this on 3 different Mac systems with various hardware configurations. Thumbnail images in the bins and frame images in the timeline seem to be recreated every time a project is opened, even though the thumbnail image files in the media cache folder don’t actually appear to get rewritten. It’s as if there is no cache at all (even for the most recently viewed bins and timelines segments). It can’t be an intentional functionality for saving hard drive space because the cache files continue to take up more and more space.

Open multiple projects simultaneously

I know that you can cut and paste between projects but being able to open multiple projects at the same time is a very useful feature of FCP7.

Magic Mouse/Magic Trackpad scrolling

Premiere Pro is a cross-platform system and impressively so, but there need to be a few Mac-specific interface adjustments, the most important of which is support for the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad scrolling. I use a Magic Mouse. (It’s an irritating device sometimes, but once you get used to it, it’s hard to live without it.) When I’m in a window, I expect a flick up or down to scroll up or down -- in every situation, every time, including the timeline. Unless I stop using all other Mac apps, I will never get accustomed to the timeline suddenly flying left or right when I want to scroll up or down. Also, here’s a chance for Adobe to fix a problem that FCP7 shared: When you scroll up or down in the effect control window using the mouse, the drop-down effect controls sometimes twirl all over the place if the mouse happens to float over them. As it is, it very easy to throw settings into random disarray without even realizing it just by scrolling through the pane.

The timeline: selection indication, icons, and general improvements

It is very difficult to discern at a glance what, if anything, is selected in the timeline. Transitions always look selected! Audio tracks should be a different color or otherwise more distinct. There should be an option to show frames only without any text. The icons for track options are small, crowded, and ugly. Some of the editing icons are too similar, namely edit and ripple edit, although the excellent status bar at the bottom of the application goes a long way towards making up for this. Simply put, the timeline could use some polish. Don’t be afraid to steal from Apple on this one. Keep the tracks; just make it easier on the eyes!

Conforming audio

The ability of CS5.5 to work natively with DSLR footage is awesome, but it’s not fully DSLR native if it has to pre-render a major component of the footage before it can play, even if it’s just the audio.

Media loading

When launching a project, it can take a long time for all the media in the project to “load” as tracked in the status bar. I’m sure there’s a reason for this, but since the program is able to determine which source media files are missing before this step (and gives you the option to reconnect them), what is it doing and why must it load every clip in the project, even those not in use by any sequences?

Page up/page down and arrow key commands

For starters, the current page up/page down key functions should take the CTI to the next cut in the sequence, not the next cut in the track that happens to be targeted, which can be way down timeline. In FCP7, I frequently navigated cut to cut with the up and down arrow keys. I’ve avoided customizing the keyboard commands to match FCP7 -- I would rather endure some hardship and learn the proper Adobe commands -- but this one is flat-out backwards. The page up/down keys should page through the timeline (left to right and right to left), while the up and down arrow keys should take over the clip to clip function (assuming the targeted track issue is fixed). Currently, the down arrow takes you to the very end of the timeline, a function already duplicated by and better suited for the “end” key.

Bin management and clip relationships

Deleting an item from a bin should not delete it from the timeline, but this is part of a bigger problem, which is the whole master file versus instance versus subclip versus dup clip thing. There aren’t any good indicators regarding the relationships of these clips, and there are few ways to adjust them. If clips are going to be connected, then they should be fully connected. For instance, changing the name of a clip in the bin should change it in the timeline. Adding an effect or trimming should affect the corresponding clips between bin and timeline. Otherwise, the clips should just be completely separate instances. I haven’t been able to find an option to turn a clip into an independent instance, although I have to think it exists. Also, editing an instance of a title does change every other instance of that title throughout the sequence. I would prefer to be able to edit them separately without having to duplicate them in the title editor.

Bin effects

Related to the above, it should be possible to add effects to clips in bins or keep effects on clips added to bin from timeline. It would also be nice to be able to group effects together in bins for a specific project. The effects window is better suited for global collections.

Clearer visual indicators that a clip has been adjusted in the effect controls panel

Even with the effects panel visible, you have to take a close look to see if there have been any adjustments to the standard settings. An indicator on the clip in the timeline itself would be useful.

Snapping should include the CTI

It should also include the blade tool, although the Cmd-K option to cut at the CTI position does make this less of an issue.

Smoother scrubbing

Scrubbing is pretty awful. While this is understandable with native footage, FCPX somehow manages to make this silky smooth at full resolution.

Color correction shape mask and better color correction in general

Simplify the primary functions of the 3-way color correction effect. Keep all the rarely used adjustments out of the way. I use Magic Bullet for some purpose, but I’ve always done most of my color correction within FCP. Put the most common adjustments front and center (or up top, as it may be). The highlights/mid-tone/shadows drop-down is inconsistent in what controls it pertains to.

FCPX’s color correction is actually one of its more underrated features. The way it allows you to layer corrections is dead-simple yet as powerful as anything in FCP7 or Premiere. Stick with the 3 wheels, but rely less on hard to control tonal ranges and add simple keyframe-able shape masks for secondary color correction.

Better support for shared media access

AVID is king in this arena and Adobe needs to improve. It should be possible for multiple editors to safely work on the same project files and share media over a server.

MINOR ISSUES

More vertically compact playback/edit control area in source and program panes

Make room for either a taller timeline or bigger previews. The virtual scrubber and shuttle controls are the nifty things you drag with the mouse the first time you ever use an NLE and never touch again.

Larger icons in icon view

Remember size and position of bin windows

Playback resolution setting indicator

There should be an always-visible indicator of the playback res setting in the preview pane that’s easy to adjust without right-clicking.

Better markers for sequences and clips

Include colors and more keyboard shortcut control.

Clip sliding with keyboard commands

“Opt-,” (that’s Option-comma) should cause a clip collision, not overwrite. Either that, or “,” and “.” should slide, while “Opt-,” should overwrite. Opt-arrow should only extend an adjoining clip if in the middle of two clips. Basically, this whole arrangement should be re-thought.

Project browser should auto refresh/sort.

Option-drag on a Mac should always be copy, not move.

Copy is currently command-drag in the project browser.

Stop auto-save from interrupting adjustments in timeline.

Ideally, the auto-save should just be a background function, but it should at least wait until you’re not in the middle of dragging something.

Add ability to select a cut directly and add default transition.

CTI control

If you move the CTI while it’s in play mode, it should continue to play from that spot after you release the mouse, not stop there.

Show number of frames being adjusted during keyframe adjustments.

Enable/disable specific effect parameters/keyframes.

Clearing an effect should clear keyframes as well.

Or have an option to clear both.

Position controls

There should be a preference to make the default position 0.0 x 0.0 (as opposed to 50% of whatever the resolution happens to be), and include a reset button.

Through-edit indicator in timeline

And a quick way to join clips, such as a right-click menu option.

Border controls for images

Auto save location preference and functionality

In FCP7 I set the number of auto saves to keep to the maximum of 100 and Premiere can go even higher. I have always used this feature as an additional backup and archive system, which has come in very handy. Those files add up, however. So, I prefer to auto-save to an external drive. Also, auto saves in Premiere continue to occur whenever there are unsaved changes. This means that if you make a small adjustment and then leave Premiere for a while, it will keep auto saving the same iteration, which is not only inefficient but leads to my next point….

Tame the bouncing dock icon on auto save

While using other apps, there’s no need for the dock icon to bounce every time Premiere performs an auto save.

More/clearer control over cache locations

There should also be an option to reset the cache/render file locations to their defaults.

Export source range

When exporting, remember the last-used setting of the export source range (or just dump the whole work area thing as I previously suggested). It’s too easy to cut off a portion of the video when the export defaults back to the work area every time.

Larger timecode display

After spending hours and hours editing, the current timecode for clips and sequences is something you want to be able to track without squinting. Use the letters h,m,s and f instead of colons.

Simple slug

Creating a black matte works okay, but it involves a few extra steps.

Snapping toggle

FCP allows you to quickly toggle snapping while dragging a clip. Upon releasing the clip, the snap toggle returns to its original state. Premiere could use this fucntion, but I suggest something simpler. Holding down the “S” key should always turn snapping on regardless of toggle state, while releasing it returns it to however it was set before.

Ability to dock the audio meters along top

I like to give my timeline as much horizontal space as possible. I’ve noticed a lot of users keep the toolbar up there, myself included. I think it would be a good place horizontally aligned audio meters as well.

More detailed tool tips or hover explanations in preferences

For example: The options regarding XMP data should make it clear that the original files will be modified by Premiere. This caused me problems in other applications. (After researching these settings, I understand that various Adobe applications use this information to share resources, but it’s still very unclear what the specific benefits are or what functions are lost without this option.)

More detailed support documents

The online support documents on the Adobe site very good. They are nicely arranged and easy to search, but they could be more detailed and offer fuller explanations. (Peruse the support forums and you will discover all kinds of debates that could have been easily cleared up with one concise line in a help document.)

Icons and button design

Icons and buttons are often too small, too similar, and too crowded throughout the interface. Take some style tips from Apple on this one.

If only Apple had just added these features and others to the FCP7 framework. Adobe can do it better though, by using smart folders in addition to the traditional bins that we know and trust (anything besides those dreadful iMovie-style “events”).

Effect previews

In the 64-bit era, there has to be a quicker way to preview effects.

Ability to render in alternate formats

Namely ProRes or DNxHD. This would save me considerable time on exports by allowing me to select the “use preview files” option.

PluralEyes functionality

Okay, I suppose I should just purchase PluralEyes...again.

Many, many more effects!

How about starting with the missing vignette effect? Just because an app is “pro” doesn’t mean you should have to custom build every effect.

Many, many more looks!

Will most of them be cheesy looks I would never touch? Sure...but give me some templates to play with before I tweak the look down to my exact specifications.

More speed!

FCPX, for all its flaws, blazes on any modern Mac. This probably comes back to hardware acceleration, but while Premiere Pro on a Mac isn’t slow, it doesn’t blow you away.

Well, because FCP7 is stuck. It was long overdue for an update and now it won't get one (not counting FCPX, of course). It may just be my experience, but it seems to crash more often under Lion too (more often as opposed to almost never). I realize my list of FCP-influenced gripes is long, but I like CS5.5 a lot. I also like what I perceive to be Adobe's commitment to professional applications. In terms of features, the ability to handle DSLR footage natively is huge for me. FCP7 wasn't built for file-based media, and it's just going to keep falling further behind.

I'm not saying this applies to you personally, but you have to take into consideration:

1. Adobe has limited resources to honor each and every feature request. So they have to prioritize.

2. Not every feature request is well documented with regards to what is requested, how it should work and how it should fit into the bigger picture.

3. A feature request may be just a single occurrence, not requested by many people or be highly complex to achieve.

I too have been using each and every version of Premiere Pro, since the days of 7.0 or should we say 1.0? I have not made many feature requests, only a (couple of) handfuls, but several have been honored, which at least gives me the feeling they were not too exotic, that I was not alone in requesting them and that Adobe listened and acted upon them. Further take into consideration that with each new version of PR, the Adobe presence here on the fora has increased and intensified, as shown by people like Wil, Todd, Kevin, Steve, Mark and others. Of course they appreciate well documented feature requests as Peter did. It makes it so much easier to understand what a user wants or misses in the current version.

Again, no personal attack, but imagine a 'feature request' from a driver requesting a better life-span for his tires on the car, stating something along these lines:

I can't use my tires more than 15000 miles and then they need to be replaced. Can't you figure out a way to make them last at least 30000 miles? This is utterly ridiculous, Adobe. Improve this, please.

While this request may make sense to this specific driver, it is a nonsense request, that can be solved by adjusting his driving style. But if one were to honor this request, it might mean changing the cornering capacities, the acceleration and braking capabilities of the car and thus the image of the car. Wide ranging effects on the positioning of the car in the market, just because of a simple feature request.

The job of filtering feature requests, judging them on feasability, resources needed, complexity, effects on other parts of the program, impact on the consistency of the user interface, etcetera is not a job I envy. I think Wil rightly complimented Peter on the way he presented his considerations.

Last remark:

Feature requests should be clearly explained in terms of what you want to do, how and why. What makes it an added feature without disrupting the current state of affairs that improves on PR and appeals to more than just a single person and why a work-around is not feasible.

Thank you, Wil. I appreciate the response and look forward to the improvements you have in store! I will submit my suggestions through the feature request form as well, but I wanted to get some feedback first. I agree with Harm that it's helpful to see what features others are requesting, which I why I published them here. I have strong opinions as to how editing software "should" function, but I'm always interested in other editors' workflows and the reasoning behind their opinions. Thanks for the support.

Good points, but as many have posted Feature Requests, going back to Pr 6.0, with zero results, but let a FCP user want major changes, and now Adobe jumps through flaming hoops. The original users of Premiere are persona non grata.

There are lots of disaffected former FCP editors out there and I'm sure they've been inundating Adobe with feature requests non-stop since June. I highly doubt that Peter is the first person to mention these and it would appear from Wil's message that Adobe was already thinking about this and didn't suddenly change course because of a single user request.

Also, in my opinion, most of these are great features worth adding regardless of who requested them and how long they've been using the software.

Premiere Pro does not need backgroud rendering. You export using Media Encoder. This alllows you to render out to different codecs and different size resolutions instead of just the specs of your timelione. If you have a slow machine you can force render certain areas for client previews. PP CS 5.5 does do full screen previews using the graphics card's HDMI port if you have dual monitors. I like the fact that the page up and page down only work for selected tracks.

Multiple effects usually require rendering to play smoothly enough to preview them (whether or not a client is watching ). I am not able to output over HDMI on my Mac, but it would also be nice to have a full screen preview mode on the main display. The page up and page down functionality is certainly a matter of personal preference, but can a keyboard shortcut be created to jump to the next cut (across all tracks) in the timeline? I haven't found a way to do this.

I have a medicocre i7 CPU and GT 240 graphics card. I can add several effects to an AVCHD clip and get smooth playback. Having said that why would you want Premiere PR 5.5 to render everything on the timline and eat up hard drive disk space for the entire timeline if only 3 or 4 percent of the timeline cannot playback in realtime? Background rendering was cool to have 10 years ago but the Media Encoder is much better than background rendering. I don't always want the page up and page down to include all tracks. Infact 95% of the time I don't. If you want that function for all the tracks then select all your audio and video tracks. It is that simple.

(you can also shortcut key any tracks to toggle targetting. I use 1 - 8 for video and Shift 1-8 for audio.)

I have full screen preview ( 1080p) realtime no lag, no additional hardware or 3rd party codecs and that is in addition to the "tilde key" function for any pane.

I can apply many Effects and all transitions without need for any preview rendering for smooth instantaneous preview. (Native source footage, multiple layers).(Some effects do require rendering and are identified as such)

but while Premiere Pro on a Mac isn’t slow, it doesn’t blow you away.

Premiere on my Windows PC blows me away.

Premiere has plenty of faults Peter... but IMHO...not one of them from my very short list even made it to your comprehensive list. BTW - a list too long to respond to point by point.

There's a reason hardware acceleration for ATI cards was first on a long list. I think I've made it pretty clear that my perspective is that of a Mac user coming from years of FCP experience. I'm not hating on Windows at all, but I do love my Macs and won't be making that switch any time soon. There are a whole bunch of professional Mac users looking for a new long-term solution and Premiere appears to be a great option. It's safe to say that Adobe is aware of this, and I don't think you can fault them for courting this crowd. I hope they continue to be aggresive about it with future updates.

When only 3 to 4 percent of the timeline doesn't require rendering after color correction or other adjustments, then background rendering and better real time playback in general would save a considerable amount of time. Currently in Premiere, I make an adjustment, render...wait...wait...preview, and repeat way to often to not want to say goodbye to the 2nd step. I agree that you should be able to disable it, but I can't see how it would hurt.

I'm glad to hear that Premiere flies on a PC. It's a good sign for its potential on both platforms.

Targeting all of the tracks is still an extra step for a function that I used to use constantly, but with shooternz shift-click tip, it's a good hint. Thanks.

I would disagree with this only on a semantic level. There is a very noteworthy difference between the Background Rending that PP could really use, and Automatic Background Rendering which would be a horrible idea for a pro level editor.

The difference is that background rendering is ALWAYS manually initiated by the user. It is no different from the current render process in how you start it. The only difference is that you'd be able to continue working while the render happens. Renders would NEVER occur by themselves, so this is not a feature that would need 'disabling'. That's Automatic rendering, and it's not wanted or needed here.

But being able to work after you manually initiate a render, that would be a valuable feature for many, I suspect.

You're right. That's an important distinction. Background rendering, that is, being able to continue working while rendering, would be very useful to me and I'm sure many others. At times my workflow would also benefit from automatic initiation, but it should only be an option. This really all comes back to smooth, real time playback at high resolution. If you can experience that without rendering, fantastic. Right now that's not the case for me with the heavy processing that DSLR footage in particular requires.

Additionally, I see the merit behind the Premiere philosophy that rendering is purely for previewing purposes and that Media Encoder is there to handle final output. I think there is something to be said for rendering in the format that you intend to output though. It can save a lot of time on export if you have to render to play much of your project anyway, but I'm getting used to Premiere's take on this. Its flexibility in getting projects and media in and out of the editing software is a strong feature. I like the idea of moving fully beyond the need for any form of intermediate codec, if it can be practically achieved by my system. In the meantime, I need to render. The less it slows me down the better.

Peter, since you seems very well informed, I would guess that you realize that rendering is really only helpful / necessary during the editing process to view your timeline. The exporting process basically rebuilds each frame of your timeline from scratch. You can select "Use Previews" for exporting, but that can be problematic and has certain constraints. Its a model that is completely different from the QT centric way FCP uses render files stitched together to make the final movie.

PrPs support of native playback necessitates this approach we are told by Adobe.

Absolutely. In regards to rendering, working efficiently in the timeline is my primary concern.

You are correct in assuming that I'm used to a QuickTime centric system that can output to ProRes without re-rendering all frames. I thought the "use previews" option could be the equivalent, but perhaps it has limitations beyond the mpeg preview file format. I read that there is an option in the Windows version to render to an uncompressed format, but there are no such options on a Mac, not that I would want to go completely uncompressed anyway. Regardless, I think it's great that Media Encoder works off of the original media format. That model as a whole makes a lot of sense. As someone who still needs to output to ProRes frequently, I was just pointing out one way in which my old system was more efficient for that specific process, but I'm willing to adapt.

I do wish that Media Encoder could output to QuickTime formats with the same quality as Apple Compressor. I find that the bit rates have to be approximately 30% higher to achieve the same results. This goes for H.264 mp4 files as well. So when QuickTime is required, I currently have to output to ProRes and then use Compressor for the final output, defeating the advantages of Media Encoder's encoding from the native format.

Peter as an ex Avid MC / DS /FCP editor I to had to learn a lot about how PrP does things. I still miss the Smart Render approach that FCP used. I think its wise to create your edit master in Prores anyway, using it to strike dubs to whatever formats are needed over time. Until this pipeline changes, it seems to me the only way to maximize by systems power by switching to a PC in the futute. I love my Mac Pro powerhouse, but Ive learned I could do much better (and faster) with CS5 using a system that accelerates its processes.

Peter, I did not say anything negative about making use of ATI cards for hardware acceleration. You need to learn to comprehend what I wrote. You are trying to edit AVCHD which is a hard codec to playback let alone apply effects. What I need you to understand is that I agree with you about PP CS6 making use of the ATI hardware. What you failed to comprehend is that some of your other request are a invalid should PP CS6 make use of Open GL/Open CL. I let you know that a mediocre GT 240 will edit AVCHD with ease. If PP CS5 make use of Open CL/Open GL then I imagine a cheap $85.00 ATI card would make some of your other request obsolete. Wouldn't you agree? Do you really want background rendering if PP CS6 makes use of Open CL? Please answer truthfully Peter.

I comprehend what you wrote, but if any amount of rendering is required, background rendering would be beneficial. If OpenCL is supported in CS6 and obviates the need to ever render on my systems, fantastic. Check it off the list.

EDIT: CS6 has only added GPU support for "OpenCL-based AMD GPUs on certain MacBook Pro computers." Most Mac users are still out of luck. Stays on the list.

I recently started giving Premiere Pro CS5 a try, and was shocked by the amount of bugs and usability issues. I'm not even going as deep as you in the features, but the most glaring evidence of the lousy interface is that timecode offset bubble that appears everytime you move a clip in the timeline... the bugger appears just under your mouse pointer and won't go away, so if you try to just move a clip down a track quickly, and let go of the button ONTO the bubble, it acts as an obstacle and your drag/drop fails ! seriously, Adobe... don't tell me nobody has stumbled upon this one during beta-testing ?

Ditto on the autosave that basicly interrupts anything you're doing. No background saving in 2011 ? At first it bothered me to no end so I disabled the autosave. And then a few hours later, Premiere crashed, and didn't even try to recover my work. I lost 2 hours of intricate work. I put autosave back on, and learned to endure the constant, annoying save dialog. And it's not like the save process is instant... even the simplest of projects takes 5 to 10 seconds to save... on an SSD... come on... let me work already...

Of course, a headache-inducing implementation wouldn't be complete if the autosave didn't trigger even 30 seconds after a manual save. If I choose an interval of 5 minutes, just autosave 5 minutes after a manual save !

In thumbnail view, you can reorder the clips manually. It's all fine, but you can't reorder them by name or date or length, unless you switch to list view and of course, lose the thumbnails.

Dragging and dropping a clip in thumbnail view is a chore, because the palette doesn't scroll when the mouse reaches the edge. You know, when you want to move something at the top all the way to the bottom... so you have to drag, let go, scroll one screen, drag, let go, scroll one screen... it's a joke. Even the timeline can do it. Heck, it's a software standard, nowadays.

Renaming a clip and pressing ENTER takes you back to... the top of the folder !?! How many times I've renamed files that were at the end of the thumbnail view, and for each clip, I had to scroll back down. Time waster.

Want to locate a clip from the timeline, in the project ? the locate function takes you to the folder. But not to the file, you have to navigate towards it manually.

Ditto on the up/down arrows. I haven't found a way to jump from cut to cut like in FCP7. How often do I need to jump to the starting/ending points ? much less often than jumping to a nearby cut.

How come I can't reorder filters in the effects pane ? sorry, I can actually reorder the filters... provided I take them from the bottom and move them up. Moving effects down doesn't work. It's driving me crazy.

Conforming happens more or less anytime. Without reason. And even if the Media Cache is already full of conformed files.

When moving the boundaries of the work area, no timecode/offset appears. You need to let go of the button and THEN hover, then you'll know the exact time/duration.

Try scrolling up in the timeline, it scrolls to the left (which is stupid, it should scroll up). Now scroll up on the tabs of a palette : they scroll to the right !?!

Can't select an active track. Direct consequence : copy-pasting a clip overlaps anything that's on track 1. Say I want to duplicate clips on the same track... I can't do it.

Copy-pasting between projects doesn't keep the transitions, only the order of the clips.

Have you tried doing a frame freeze on a reversed clip and setting proper in/out points for the freeze ? Good luck.

"Duplicate" command, when you right click on a thumbnail, is way too far from the cut/copy/paste commands at the top, even though they're quite related.

The other day I transcoded footage with different audio parameters. Just the audio had changed. Upon opening the project, Premiere wanted me to locate the files, which I did. And it failed miserably. Instead, I opened the project ignoring the missing files, and then re-linked them. I pointed Premiere at the first missing file, and had to confirm the replacement. Premiere saw all the other missing files in that folder, and began prompting me FOR EACH SINGLE FILE !!! two hundred and forty three of them, precisely. Can't I have a "yes to all" button in 2012 ? and why does the relinking work inside the project and not when you open a project ?

That was just from 3 days with Premiere Pro CS5. I still can't believe it. Just to think people bashed Final Cut Pro X, praising Premiere in comparison... Sorry, but they both have serious issues. And Premiere doesn't even have the excuse of novelty.

Honestly, I expected Premiere Pro to perform beautifully just like Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign always did. I wanted it to work for me because it's cross-platform and I was contemplating buying a PC as my video workhorse, keeping the Macbook Pro for field editing and quick stuff.

What other NLEs are there on the Mac for me to try ? Avid Media Composer 6 ? I'm currently trying it out and it's even more quirky than Premiere Pro, but for different reasons.

As the orginal poster said, FCP7 is not an option since it's discontinued (as good as it is, I can't continue to commit to a dead product), and FCP X, well... beautiful clean interface, robust playback engine, no-fuss proxy editing mode, but way too heavy on my laptop and much too iMoviesque in too many areas.

I've been continuing to use Premiere on my Mac for some projects. I like it, as I made clear in my original post. Skipping transcoding is awesome and saves significant money in storage costs. Average out the good and the bad, and Premiere CS5.5 is right there with FCP7 (and very similar to it). It's better than FCPX. That's just not good enough though since the dying FCP7 hasn't been updated in years and FCPX wasn't designed for professionals, especially in terms of media management, despite the marketing ploy of keeping the Pro name. Final Cut X may get better though, and at a much lower price point. That's why a lot is riding on CS6.

I disagree that there are a lot of options out there though, which is frustrating to Final Cut users who are hoping -- rooting actually -- for Premiere Pro to become a legitimate alternative. (A lot of editors chuckled when I first said I was going to try Premiere, which is not surprising if you ever had to use Premiere about 10 years ago.) AVID is always a strong alternative, but it's interface is remarkably awkward, ugly, and unintuitive. It may have begun life on a Mac, but it's about as home in Mac OS X as the Windows Registry would be.

It does concern me that some fundamental problems appear to have existed in Premiere for so long, a program that shares it roots with FCP and has carried the "Pro" moniker since 2003. I think the frustration of Guy Job and others is that so many of the problems seem obvious and could be so easy to fix.

The track targeting/selecting/source nonsense is downright awful (discussion: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3782712). That's something I meant to address even further in my original post, but I wanted to give it more time to try to figure out if there was any logic behind it at all. There isn't. It makes keyboard editing less efficient for basic inserts and overwrites. The related up/down arrow keys issues (with their poor, track selection-dependent page key equivalents) should have been higher on my list, as well as the scrolling and clip sliding issues. What seem like a minor interface oversights are really hurting Adobe's chances with Mac users who are used to more attention to detail.

Unfortunately, the screen shots flashed briefly in the Conan editors' sneak peak of CS6 do not give me much hope in the track/timeline area (nor much information, to be fair), although Conan's guys' enthusiasm for CS6 is a great sign: http://vimeo.com/38593381

But my original post was really not meant to be a negative review. I'm very picky. Premiere Pro CS5.5 is a powerful NLE that is easy to transition to if you have experience with FCP Classic. My intention was just to get some useful feedback, which I did, let others with the same gripes know that they weren't alone, and maybe even push Adobe in the right direction when it comes to the opportunity that Apple has handed them.

CS6 will be introduced very soon. I think it will be impressive, although they have a lot prove. Let's also keep in mind the possibilities of the creative cloud. One of the advantages they are touting is that it will allow them to push out updates more quickly.

It's never happened to me in practice. And it's not a common complaint here in the forums.

I haven't found it to be a particular nuisance, but that does happen actually. The mouse pointer changes to the "can't drop here" icon just because of the overlay. You have to drop it to one side or the other or nothing happens.

I'm sure what Guy Job is experiencing is that the Page Up/Page Down keys only work on tracks that happen to be selected. So sometimes those keys do nothing. There is no way to assign keystrokes that go to the next/previous edit in the timeline, which is strange to FCP users, especially since the up/down arrow keys seem like such a good fit for that function. (Avid's "A" and "S" keys also cause newbies confusion with their default settings, but they can be reconfigured to ignore track selectors.)

In Premiere, an option is to just keep every track selected, but if you're laying down clips on higher tracks and you want to take advantage of the comma and period keys to overlay clips, you have to deselect the lower tracks or you get unwanted black space (a bizarre bug in itself). Even if you set up track selection keyboard shortcuts, that's a lot of extra keystrokes or clicks for routine editing functions.

EDIT: Fixed in CS6! In CS6, up/down arrows go to the previous/next edit point on the selected tracks. Shift-up/shift-down arrows go to the previous/next edit point on any track. The shift thing should be the other way around, but at least that can be modified in the keyboard preferences.

Renaming a clip and pressing ENTER takes you back to... the top of the folder !?!

On my Windows 7 machine, it simply drops to the next file.

I'm with Jim on this one. I haven't seen that. One hint I've discovered is that there is actually a difference between the "Return" key and the number pad "Enter" key, if you have a full size keyboard. "Return" highlights the next file down. "Enter" just enters.

It does for me (excepting the fixed effects like Position and Opacity).

I haven't seen that problem either, nor the issue with random conforming. It does "reload" the media every time at startup for some reason and constantly recreates thumbnails, but conforming audio only happens once at import in my experience.